


The Apprenticeship

by miss_aphelion



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Episode Fix-It: s02e13 Mizumono, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-20 09:51:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9485861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_aphelion/pseuds/miss_aphelion
Summary: There were so many plans, so many varied motivations, all of them twisting together to bring them to this moment. Jack's desire for justice, Hannibal's desire for dominance, and Will…so undecided, still playing both sides.No one suspected Abigail might have plans of her own—not even Hannibal, who really should have.





	1. Abigail and Hannibal

**Author's Note:**

> I have been thinking up ways to try and fix the season two finale since I first saw it. I had a million things running through my mind that Hannibal could have done differently, and Will could have done differently, but none of them seemed to ring true. 
> 
> And then it occurred to me: what if Abigail was the one that did things differently? I wanted to see what would happen if she'd learned from Hannibal instead of just blindly following him.

Abigail Hobbs is not the hero of her own story—mostly this is because there aren't any heroes in her story. She supposes Will Graham comes the closest; he's half a white knight, after all. Riding in to her rescue, firing his gun just moments before the knife can bite deep enough that he'll be the last thing she ever sees. But the thing about Will Graham is that he did not come into her life alone. 

He brought Hannibal with him. 

She really isn't able to quite separate them in her mind, so she supposes it makes sense that to Hannibal, she is nothing but an extension of Will. She is the prison sentence, and the happy surprise. She is the carrot. She is the stick. She is not Abigail, to him. 

Hannibal is well spoken in a way her father never was. She could see past her father's walls, was perhaps the only one he ever let on the other side of them, but all she knows about Hannibal is that the walls exist. And they are impenetrable. 

But she knows him well enough that she realizes, the moment that Will calls to warn him, that Hannibal has made the decision to kill her. 

He thinks she hasn't figured out that Will has been betraying Hannibal this entire time, but she knows Will; in some ways, she knows him better than Hannibal. Will is not the white knight…but he wants to be, and he tries to be. Betrayal in this case is all but inevitable. 

She watches as Hannibal cuts vegetables, dismissing her concerns, condemning everyone on the way to his house to death. 

It is so strange, this connection that she has to him, her accomplice in crime. She often thought of her relationship as similar to fairy tales of love at first sight. She was not in love with him by any means, but she did love him, and it was an instant, terrifying sort of love that was born of dependence and desperation and admiration. She felt connected to Will in almost an entirely opposite way: all fondness and gratitude and fear. 

"Do you remember the day my father slit my throat?" she asks after a moment of steady silence. Hannibal glances up in mild surprise, though he is too collected to allow any of his surprise to show. "I was dying, and I looked up, and there was Will, like some blood-splattered angel, desperate and terrified." She pauses, watching the emotions behind his eyes, that possessive, proprietary look he gets every single time he hears Will's name spoken by someone other than him. "And then there was you," she continues. "Keeping me alive with no emotion at all." 

"If you have something to say to me, Abigail, then say it," Hannibal says. His voice is sharp and prim, his accent smooth and soothing, though she is more familiar than most with its dangerous edge. 

"You didn't care if I lived or not," she explains. 

"Don't be childish, I didn't know you then," he tells her, and that he pauses his latest knife stroke is the only sign that he is growing annoyed. He looks up at her. "What is this about?" 

"You say you didn't know me, but nothing's changed. None of us have changed. We might as well still be there," she shrugs, leaning back against the kitchen island, less than five feet away. Hannibal only needs to take two steps to kill her. He could probably do it without moving a single step, if he decides to throw the knife instead. "Will's still terrified and desperate, backed into a corner by your manipulations. And you're still watching the show, curious to see if you can guess what happens next." 

"Abigail," he says, his voice deep and clear. Sometimes Hannibal speaks and she feels like they should be in a chapel, or deep in the center of some echoing cavern. 

She can tell he's losing his patience, which is always a risky proposition. So she stops stalling and gets to the point. "I know you're going to kill me to punish him," she explains, catching his eyes and not looking away. "But Will's not like us, not really. You know I'll let you do what you want to me, but he doesn't deserve what you have planned." 

"Will is a living mirror," Hannibal says, returning to his vegetables. "He'll be like us as long as he's with us. Which is why we're waiting for him." 

"You're going to kill them all," she denies, shaking her head. "Maybe even him. And for what? You're so elegant, Hannibal. Everything you do, you do with finesse. What you're letting happen now, this will be brutal. There won't be survivors. No witnesses to your art." 

Hannibal pauses, and it's more than she expects. "What do you suggest?" 

"Let him go," she says simply. "He can't be what you want. He may have looked into the abyss a little too long, but when he sees someone hurt, his first instinct is still to help." 

"You say that like it's a failing," Hannibal says curiously. He is always pushing the boundaries of her own shredded moral code. Abigail has no illusions about what she is, but neither is she so far gone so as not to feel guilt and pain. Really, guilt is her biggest problem. It's almost entirely the reason she's still here. 

"I think it's unfortunate," she says finally. "If you're going to live with what we live with, can you imagine doing it and feeling everything? He can see it from all sides, and it's pulling him apart. _You're_ pulling him apart."

"On the contrary, I'm the one putting him together," he denies calmly. He watches her with his flat, strange eyes. "And you care. You feel." 

"I care about myself," she explains. "When I think of what happened, what I've done, I'm not as sorry for them as I am for what it did to me." 

"And me?" he asks. "You think I do not feel?" 

"I think you're not sorry for anything," she says without hesitation. 

"You do not understand yourself," he responds, which has some truth, but not as much as he believes. "Let alone me and Will." 

He turns away then, absently grabbing a bottled water from the fridge. It's a sort of a dismissal, the conversational version of a checkmate. But he does not understand her, either, whatever he thinks, or he would be far more cautious around her than he is. 

"You don't see like Will can see," he tells her, sipping at the water. He shakes his head in disappointment. She wonders if he will forever compare people to Will. She also wonders if he understands he cannot have him without breaking him beyond repair, but then maybe that's been his plan all along.

"We could leave now, just the two of us," she says, though she's mostly going through the motions at this point. Hannibal has made his decision, as she has made hers. "That's what Will wants you do. It's why he called." 

"Will doesn't know what he wants," Hannibal corrects. "He lays an elaborate trap to catch me, then calls to warn me before it can be sprung. He cannot make up his mind, so we must do it for him." He leans on the counter, suddenly not as composed, looking weirdly fragile and exhausted. "There is no Hannibal and Abigail, not without Will. Do you understand?" 

"Yes," she says. "I understand he is all that matters to you. But if you really believed that, you'd leave him alone." 

"You think leaving will save him, don't you?" he asks, wincing as he slumps against the counter. He runs the hand holding the knife through his hair as he uses the other hand to steady himself. "You only say that because you didn't know him before he met me. I'm the one that woke him up." 

Abigail watches as Hannibal loses his balance, one hand wrapping around the far edge of the counter to keep him from slipping from the floor. She can see something in his eyes now, their flat, composed surface tinged for the first time with something like fear. 

"What did you do?" he asks, his cultured voice rasping roughly as he fights to hang onto consciousness. He's only managing it by a thread. 

Abigail's own eyes are clear and bright, like a hunter about to line up her killing shot. "I drugged the water. You always drink that fancy Italian water before you head in for a kill. You should know it's dangerous to have a ritual. Worse still to let someone see it." She steps forward, and Hannibal loses his grip, tumbling gracelessly to land on his backside on the floor. "But you were so busy watching Will, you forgot to watch me." 

She thinks she can see the smallest sliver of admiration in his eyes as he glares up at her. She is not Will, so this is not exactly a betrayal. She cannot hurt him the way Will can hurt him. And a master always appreciates an apprentice that's learned the lessons they've taught. 

"How?" It's the only thing he asks, his sleepy, fading voice still strong enough to bounce off the tiled floor and snap back at her like a warning shot. 

"I used a syringe, pushed the needle straight through the top of the bottle, right where it's covered by the band around the lid," she explains, as she kneels down beside him. "I took the drug from your own supply, the one with no flavor, just like you taught me." 

His hand tightens on the knife he's been holding. He could have let it go to use both hands to hold onto the counter, but he'd made the choice to fall and keep the knife. She knows he would use it if he could, there would not have been mercy for her. As far as Hannibal is concerned, he already killed her in the Hobbs family kitchen. He'd think nothing of slaughtering her in his own. 

She leans down, gently prizing the knife from his hand. His hand falls limply away as he loses his last touchstone, and falls limp to the floor. His eyes flicker closed with reluctance, but even Hannibal can't break free of his own strongest sedative. That's why he stocked it in the first place. 

"Sweet dreams, Hannibal," she says.


	2. Abigail and Will

Abigail used to be able to carry half a boned out buck carcass for miles on her back, so even though Hannibal is all solid muscle and so much taller, she still manages to get him out of the house. She rolls him in one of the throw rugs from the sitting room that looks more like a piece of modern art than a carpet, and then drags it by one side straight out the front door. 

It's still light out as evening approaches but she is a pretty young girl with an innocent smile, and this is camouflage almost no one can see past. It's why she was her father's favorite bait. No one notices anything amiss and she lifts the carpet up around the middle and tumbles it into Hannibal's trunk. Even if her description is recalled by a witness, it will only match poor dead Abigail Hobbs. 

She pushes the carpet forward into the trunk just enough to give Hannibal space to move and breathe. She tied his hands before she rolled him up with the zip ties he keeps in his garage, and pressed a piece of duct tape across his lips. She should hog tie him and dose him again if she's being honest, but time is a factor. As it is, she can see Jack Crawford pulling into Hannibal's driveway in her rearview mirror as she pulls away down the street. 

She did not clean up the evidence Hannibal has stored around his house, or remove the remnants of his victims from his freezer. Crawford will find them. The test results will come back in less than a day for a case this high profile. This is intentional, but risky. She wants this final vindication for Will, because she's never quite forgiven herself for being the reason he was falsely accused. Hannibal had not told her, of course, what he planned. He had not told her she was dying to frame Will. She does not know if knowing that would have changed anything, and that is what she feels the most guilty about. 

Her eyes keep flickering to the mirrors as she drives, looking for sirens or any sign of Hannibal waking in the trunk, but there is nothing. The roads she's turning down grow more and more isolated the father from Baltimore she gets. Abigail has never been to Will's house, but it is pre-programmed into Hannibal's GPS system. Soon she is pulling up in front of the little white house, the howls of Will's oft-spoken of dogs filtering out through its walls. 

She sits there for a moment before finally reaching for Hannibal's phone. She does not have one of her own. It might be in an evidence locker somewhere, or Hannibal may have destroyed it. She enters Hannibal's PIN to unlock the phone, a feat that taken her weeks of casual observations, and then opens the contacts. Will stands out amongst the list, the only one Hannibal listed by first name only. 

Will answers on the first ring, and that should tell her something. They are probably already both lost. 

"Hannibal, what are you doing?" Will asks urgently. "Jack's already got a forensic team at your house, he's not going to forget to trace your phone." 

"Don't worry, Hannibal has two phones. They don't know about this one," Abigail tells him.

The other end of the line goes silent. She wonders if that is all it will take for Will's scary, brilliant mind to piece together Hannibal's plan for them. She hopes so. She's not really the best one to explain it if not, she's not sure she understands it herself. 

"Abigail?" Will finally asks, his voice quiet and gentle now, the urgency replaced by disbelief. She has never understood why her life means so much to him. She's done nothing to deserve it. 

"Hey, Will," she says quietly. She thinks back to the last time she saw him, so sick he could barely stand, so confused he didn't know what he was doing. He'd been stuck in the midst of one of Hannibal's experiments, they both had, but she hadn't known it, then. She'd been afraid of him, and run to Hannibal. 

She often wonders might have happened if she and Will had run from Hannibal, instead. 

"How—" he starts, but stutters, and she imagines he answers his own question. He can probably see it: her back pressed up against Hannibal, his hands strangely gentle around her waist, caught up in their own grisly waltz as they paint the whole room red. "Are you okay?" he finishes instead. 

"We don't have time for that," she says. "We have a decision to make." 

Something about her voice must tip him off, because he goes quiet for another moment before he speaks again. "Where is Hannibal, Abigail?" 

"He's in the trunk of his car," she replies simply. She glances towards the back, but the car remains still. "We can't do this over the phone. We need to meet." She listens to another heavy pause, and closes her eyes. "I know you suspect a trap. That's smart. You should. But it isn't." 

"Jack is expecting me," Will says. "If I don't show up…" 

Everyone will believe they ran off together. Abigail isn't sure yet that won't be how this ends, so she just sighs. "It's probably for the best if you do what he says," she tells him. "Goodbye, Will." 

"Wait," he calls, frantic, and his decision is made. "Where are you?" 

"Wolf Trap," she answers simply.

"That's risky," he says, and she can imagine the little frown he gets while he says it. She wonders if it's strange to know someone as well as she knows Will, when she knows almost nothing about him at all. 

"They'll be searching the airports, we have time for now," she says. "Just give Crawford a good excuse." 

"Abigail—" he starts. 

"You have an hour to get here, or I'm gone," she says, before ending the call. She does not worry that Will will bring the police. If he was not fully willing to turn in Hannibal, she knows he will never do it to her. She climbs out of the car, hears the frantic dogs in the house lift their voices just a bit higher, and turns towards the sky. The stars are beginning to show up, always arriving a bit sooner in places this far from a city. 

She hasn't seen them in such a long time. She's been living on old mattresses in safe house after safe house, traveling from place to place huddled under a blanket in the back of Hannibal's car. Most recently he's been keeping her in his attic like a toy he's still rather fond of but has no immediate use for. 

She's leaning back against the trunk when Will pulls up beside her. She has no weapons, and puts her hands up to show it, though she really shouldn't have worried. She wonders sometimes if Will is too brilliant to understand common sense: he should be wary of her, but she can tell at one glance he's so grateful to see her alive that he would let her do anything to him. 

"Abigail," he says, rushing forward. She lets him hug her, though it's strange. Hannibal would run a hand along her shoulders or lightly tap her cheek when he was pleased with her. It is the only contact she's had in so very long. 

He pulls her with him when he steps back, keeping one wary eye on the trunk of the car. He looks between them for a moment, as though he can't quite bring himself to believe Hannibal might actually be waiting inside. "What are you planning to do here, Abigail?" he finally asks. 

He looks good, she thinks. He's always been attractive, but before he was attractive in a hapless, helpless sort of way that made her want to bundle him up and ply him with cookies and warm tea. Now he's dressed nicer than she's ever seen him, wearing a sleek button-up shirt with his curls still a little unruly, but appearing styled to be that way. It's Hannibal's influence, she knows. She thinks back to his claim that he's making Will rather than breaking him, and wonders if maybe he wasn't so far off the mark after all. 

"That's up to you," she explains, and tosses him the car keys. He catches them almost without thinking, and looks down at them in trepidation. "We can turn him in now, if that's what you want. I'll even testify. He cut off my ear, framed you, kept me with him all this time, that's all true enough. I've witnessed him doing worse." 

It should be exactly what Will wants, should be exactly what they both want. Hannibal caught, no bloodshed needed. No one else dead. He can be safely locked away somewhere they don't need to think of him, either with fear or grief. He will be held where they only need to see him when and if they want to. 

It was a lovely fantasy, and one she often entertained as she stole the sedative from Hannibal's cabinet and meticulously injected it into every bottle of water in his fridge. But it isn't what she—what either of them—really want. It's just what they're supposed to want. 

"Or we can let him out," she adds casually. 

"He'll kill us," Will says, voice going a bit breathless as he watches the trunk as though he expects it to burst open any moment. It is the right thing to say but the wrong way to say it: there's a sort of resigned inevitability to his voice, as though there is really no option but this. 

"You're not going to turn him in," she realizes. She isn't sure if she should be relieved or terrified, if this is what she wants or what she fears. She is almost certain Hannibal will give her a clean, quick death, but she has just started to enjoy living on this borrowed time. 

Abigail sighs and glances away. She's already condemned herself, but she won't condemn Will. He needs to make this leap on his own or not at all. Hannibal said himself that leaving won't save Will, though she at least wanted to give him a chance to save himself. 

But she can see now that he's no more able to take that chance than she is. This is the turning point, and they can no longer blame Hannibal for what will happen next. They are fully complicit. 

Will looks back towards her. "You need to get out of here," he says, rightly realizing that Hannibal may still not forgive even Will for his betrayal, which means he will certainly not forgive Abigail for hers. "I just got you back, I won't let him take you again. Go to Alana. She'll keep you safe." 

"There is no safe for me," she tells him. "I'm not going anywhere." 

Will looks strangely proud of her and also so disappointed. She wonders if she had had a normal father if he would have looked at her like this too. They couldn't save themselves, but at least they had tried to save each other.

Will startles away from her gaze at a loud crash, stumbling back a step as he turns to look back at the trunk. Abigail narrows her own eyes and takes a step closer. Hannibal has kicked out one of the taillights. She leans sideways, putting herself at eye level, and can see one of Hannibal's eyes staring back at her. 

"Stay back," Will calls nervously, reaching down to grab his holstered gun. He pulls it out but keeps it aimed down at the ground. 

"Abigail," Hannibal says from the trunk, pulling her gaze back to him. He does not sound furious, but he is, she can tell. 

Abigail steps back, coming to stand just a half step behind Will. "He was already planning to kill me," she tells him calmly. "Now at least there's a chance he might find me interesting enough to spare for awhile longer." 

"Shit," Will curses, and presses his eyes closed. He keeps the gun in one hand and reaches for the keys with his other. "We shouldn't do this."

Abigail reaches out, her hand covering his as he places his finger to the trunk release on the keys. "No," she agrees. "We really shouldn't." 

And together they open the trunk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for everyone's comments and kudos! I am planning currently to end this in about one more chapter. It was meant to be a one-shot originally but sort of keeps getting out of hand!


	3. Abigail and (Will & Hannibal)

The trunk clicks and Hannibal's hand reaches out to push it all the way up. He is less rumpled than he should be, his white silk button down remaining fairly creaseless as he rises up on his knees. She can see the red marks around his wrists, and one of his thumbs is cradled stiffly, indicative of how he managed to get loose from her ties. His mouth is slightly red where he's pulled off the duct tape. These are the only signs that anything is amiss, as he swings his legs over the edge of the trunk to stand gracefully on his feet. 

Will is holding his gun steadily aimed, but Hannibal is not concerned. He somehow manages to still appear as though he is in the one in control. Abigail glances to the side, running her eyes over Will, and realizes that Hannibal is right to think it. Will won't shoot him, maybe not even to save her. 

"Stay where you are," Will says, moving to shield her a bit more. Hannibal tilts his head, but he is not watching Will. He is only watching her. 

"How long were you planning that?" Hannibal asks her. He leans back against the open trunk, crossing his legs at his ankles. He casually reaches down to rest his hands in his pockets, as though they are old friends, meeting outside some café. 

"Since you brought me to the house," she answers honestly. "I knew my part in your plans was conditional, so I made some of my own." 

He grins slyly, his eyes lighting strangely. She remembers lying there on her father's kitchen floor, Will and Hannibal above her, like she was trapped between an angel and a devil. Their opposite, otherworldly eyes locked onto her from both sides. 

"You were planning to kill me," Abigail reminds him. 

"Yes," Hannibal agrees simply. "I was going to slit your throat. I thought it might be poetic. A little parting gift for Will." 

Will curses, almost unconsciously stepping forward. Abigail reaches out and catches his sleeve, holding him back. Will won't win in a fight with Hannibal, and they both know it. It's not that he couldn't. Just that he _won't_. 

"And now?" she asks. 

"If I were to kill you now, it would be for your own sins, not those of any other," he says. "You have earned that." 

"You touch her and I'll kill you," Will tells him. Abigail is surprised to find his voice is steady, and looks at him again, reassessing her opinion. Will has always been hard to predict: it's what Hannibal loves most about him. 

Hannibal's smile doesn't dim, and he finally turns to look at Will instead. "I'm sure you would try," he says amiably. He rises back up to his full height, and spreads his arms out wide. "Here I am. Take your best shot." 

"You haven't hurt her yet," Will says, and he sounds less resolute now. Hannibal does that, gets inside your head, takes your certainty and twists it all around. Abigail knows that particular talent of his intimately. 

"Haven't I? I sliced off her ear and dropped it down your throat," he reminds him, as he takes a step closer. Will stumbles back from him, and pushes Abigail another step behind him. "If that doesn't count, what else will you let me do to her? What would you let me do to you?" 

Hannibal takes another step, and Will fires the gun. Will shot her father ten times and didn't miss him once, even as his hands were shaking. This shot glances off Hannibal's left arm, tearing a line in his shirt and grazing the skin, but doing very little damage. It had not been meant to hurt or even disable; it was a warning shot. 

Abigail could have told him it would be wasted on Hannibal. He wouldn't have stopped coming if he'd shot him in the throat.

He uses Will's own shock at having actually fired the gun to close the remaining space between them and twist it from his hands. It's less than three seconds and he has Will pressed up against him with his injured arm locked against his throat, and his free hand aiming his newly acquired gun right at Abigail. 

"Hann—" Will starts to protest, but Hannibal just tightens his grip. Will looks pale and his eyes flicker to hers in worry. Not for himself. For her. 

He has such pretty eyes, and she so rarely gets to see them. He never holds anyone's stare for long, but he doesn't look away from her now. She wishes she could say goodbye, but Hannibal won't allow them to have a conversation without him. Instead she just flashes him a quicksilver smile, a brave face to let him know this is okay. Whatever happens, she'll be okay. 

"This is between me and Abigail, William," Hannibal says. "Kindly wait your turn." 

He tightens his grip on Will even further, pulling him closer, in some parody of an embrace. Abigail watches as he dismisses Will from his mind then: catalogues him as contained, moves to deal with the more immediate threat. Will obviously resents being sidelined, but can't seem to get out any words around the rather firm hold that Hannibal has on his neck. 

"Are you going to kill me?" Abigail asks calmly, raising her eyes back to face Hannibal. Guns aren't really Hannibal's style, but she's seen him kill someone with an ice pick before for no other reason than it was the closest thing at hand. She has no doubts he's a crack shot. 

"I should," Hannibal says. "You have proven you can't be trusted." 

"And if I had done everything you said, I would already be dead," Abigail points out. "Can you really call a counter-move a betrayal?" 

"That's a clever way of looking at it, but if you're going down that road, I suppose we must both blame Will," Hannibal says easily. Abigail turns to watch Will, who is no longer steady on his feet. His lips are beginning to look slightly blue. Hannibal is restricting enough air to keep him manageable, but not enough that he will pass out. 

"So kill Will," Abigail says, and though she tries to keep it steady it is the first time her voice trembles. Hannibal does not miss it. "Except you can't, can you? Oh, you can hurt him. And he can hurt you. But neither of you will be able to take that final step, because that would mean you would lose what you have. So that leaves me, then. You won't kill him, and he won't kill us. But you'll kill me." 

"You don't trust Will to protect you?" he asks wryly. 

"I don't trust anyone to protect me," Abigail says. "I learned that from my father. And from you and Will." 

"You've left something out," Hannibal says knowingly. He relaxes his grip on Will slightly, some sixth sense telling him he needs to give him a little space to breathe. Will sucks in a gasping breath, but then Hannibal's arm closes in again. 

"We are all capable of killing," she says. "If you want to know if I'm capable of killing either of you then the answer is yes, but that doesn't mean I will. It doesn't even mean I would ever choose to. If I wanted you dead, you would be. If I wanted to fight you, I wouldn't have come unarmed." 

"Then what did you hope to accomplish?" Hannibal asks, then pauses as he figures it out. "Oh, I see. You wanted to see what Will would do with me." 

"That's what you wanted, isn't it?" Abigail asks. "You wanted him to choose you. Over everything else. And he did. There's no reason to punish us when you've finally gotten what you want." 

"You believe I wanted this?" Hannibal asks curiously. Abruptly, he lets Will go. Will falls to his knees, and catches himself on his hands, breathing shakily. 

"I believe you want him," Abigail says. "And I've given him to you just as thoroughly as I gave you to him earlier tonight." 

"Son of a bitch," Will curses roughly to himself, before glancing up at her with mild disappointment, but not anger. It was always a risky move. Abigail would have gone along with Will if he chose to turn Hannibal in, that was never a lie. 

But there was never really much chance of Will making that choice. 

"He shot me," Hannibal says wryly, glancing down at his sleeve before turning his eyes to Will. Will pushes himself up to his knees, turning to glare over at Hannibal instead. 

"You deserved it," Will snaps, as he shakily pushes himself all the way back to his feet, and stumbles just out of Hannibal's reach. 

"He won't turn you in, though," Abigail says. "Will?" 

"Oh, what? Should I apologize? Because I'm sort of regretting that decision, actually," Will says defiantly, though his voice is shaky and sounds torn as he rubs at his throat. 

He looks between her and Hannibal a moment, and then heaves an irritated sigh and starts stomping off towards his house. Hannibal jerks to look at him in surprise, though he keeps the gun trained solely on her. 

"Where are you going?" he asks sharply, watching Will's progress with increasing anxiety. "Will!" 

"Going to get my first aid kit," Will snarls back. "Try not to kill each other while I'm gone." 

Hannibal turns back to her then, looking almost strangely helpless. Only Will could ever get Hannibal this off balance. She had drugged him and rolled him in carpet, forced him into the trunk of his car, and he had exited entirely unruffled from the whole ordeal. 

Will had knocked his whole world out from under him with a single twenty second phone call. 

"You can't control him, you know," Abigail says bravely. 

"Nor you, it would seem," he says, though there is something of admiration in his voice, hidden behind the thin layer of censure. 

"Is that really what you wanted?" she asks. "Just a pawn for you to move around the board? For me to just stand there as you destroyed us?" 

"It is what I expected. You were right, before. I lost sight of you in my preoccupation with Will. For that, I am sorry." His eyes latch onto her, fiery and cold at the same time. "I see you now, Abigail."

She swallows carefully and tries to hide her emotions. She is sure she is unsuccessful. Hannibal is very aware of how dangerous a thing his gaze can be. "I did this for us," she says. "You wanted to break us. I wanted to save us. But as usual, Hannibal, what happens is up to you. You can shoot me now. Will will forgive you eventually, you're too deep in his head for him not to. Take him and run. He'll fight you, but he'll follow." 

"It is tempting," Hannibal agrees. "But he'll be easier to control if I have you. Of which you are well aware." 

"Yes," she admits. 

"I wanted him to come on his own," Hannibal admits. "I kept you a secret for a reason." 

"He warned you about the trap before he knew about me," she reminds him. 

"He wanted _me_ to run," Hannibal snaps, his eyes flashing furiously. "He didn't want to come _with_ me." 

"Yes, I did," Will says quietly. Hannibal hadn't heard his approach, and he twists his head to look at him in mild surprise. "I was scared to, and I didn't want to want to. But I did want to." 

"But you wouldn't have," Hannibal says mildly, tinged with disappointment. 

"And you would have killed Abigail, if she hadn't stopped you first," he points out. "What do 'might haves' have to do with where we are now?" 

He sets the medical kit on the top of the car and opens it, before turning his attention to Hannibal's sleeve. He rips the silk further to see the wound and Hannibal makes a pained noise that has more to do with the loss of his shirt than the loss of skin. "Careful," he warns. 

"I barely grazed you," Will says, tugging Hannibal's arm out towards the dying light to see it better. "Stop fussing." 

Abigail watches in disbelief as Hannibal lets himself be moved around, the gun he holds in his other hand almost forgotten. Not ten minutes ago they had been in the middle of a standoff, and now they were acting so domestic she felt like she was intruding. 

Will sighs as he runs a disinfectant pad over the wound, and glances back towards the solitary road leading to his house. "We can't stay here much longer," he says. "I told Jack I was going to get my dogs and take them somewhere safe, that I was worried you would come after them in retaliation. I figure we've got maybe another fifteen minutes before he gets anxious and starts trying to track me down." 

Hannibal narrows his eyes. "I would not have harmed your dogs, Will," he says, sounding genuinely offended. 

"Good to know where I stand in the hierarchy," Abigail says wryly. 

Hannibal glances at her dismissively, before returning his attention to Will. "His dogs are not a threat, Abigail. Don't be petty." 

Will finishes up cleaning the graze and then wraps it up with gauze. He looks up when he finishes, studying Hannibal closely. Abigail isn't sure what he sees. Will is never as good at reading those close to him as he is at reading everyone else. 

"Abigail and I have both made our choices," he says finally. "Now it's your turn. I'm going to ask you do something for me, and it's going to decide how this night ends." 

Hannibal brings his hand back to his side as Will releases it, and gives a faint nod of acknowledgement. 

"I want you to give me my gun back, Hannibal," Will says. 

Hannibal considers the question for a moment, hesitantly reaching out a hand to draw his fingers across the slight discoloration at Will's throat. He looks more pleased with the marks than regretful about them. "What are you going to do with it if I do?" he asks. 

"I'm more concerned about what you're going to do with it if you don't," Will says. "We don't have much time. You have to decide what you're going to do. If you want to kill us, it's your last chance. If we leave here, we're in it together. No more backstabbing. No more manipulations. That's non-negotiable." 

"That's a lot of conditions," Hannibal says. "And I'm not the only one that might have trouble following them." 

"I agree," Abigail says without hesitation. "We don't do it to each other. Not anymore." 

Will nods at her, smiling faintly, and turns back to Hannibal expectantly. "Well, that's two out of three. Next time we run a game, we're on the same side or I'm not playing." 

Hannibal watches him carefully. Abigail can see him running the scenarios through his mind. He could still go through with his original plan and kill her, leave Will alone and adrift and punished, broken enough he'll have no where else to turn but to the one that hurt him. 

Or he can finally stop planning every single step of his actions, and take a leap of faith. 

Hannibal twists the gun in his hand, turning the barrel up to point at the sky, and then slowly offers it to Will. It's a concession, and a promise, and Hannibal looks almost sick as he does it; sick in the knowledge of what he's giving up for gains that cannot be properly calculated and might not yield a proper return. 

Will is more practical, and doesn't dwell on it. He takes the gun without ceremony, and pushes it back on his holster. Then he turns on his heel and starts towards his car. "We'll need to take my car for now," he says. "But it won't be long before Jack is looking for it too." 

"What about your dogs?" Abigail asks worriedly, as she skips behind him to catch up. 

Will looks back at his house sadly, before shaking his head. "I said my goodbyes for now," he says. "Alana will make sure they're taken care of." 

Will gets in the driver's seat and Hannibal sits beside him. Abigail sits in the back and watches them carefully, not wanting to break their fledgling truce. "I brought the passports and the airline tickets," she offers cautiously. 

Will glances back as he pulls out. "Passports?" 

"I had identities created for us all," Hannibal explains. "But it is too late for the airport. Jack will have them all watched." 

Will thinks that over. "Driving out of state is too risky, even if we can get our hands on anther car. He'll have roadblocks up already for all the highways." 

"What do you suggest?" Hannibal asks calmly. 

"I have a boat docked a couple miles from here," Will offers after a moment. "I never take it out because it needs a lot of fixing up, but it'll still sail." 

"I've always wanted to learn to sail," Abigail says, trying not to hope, and doing it anyway. Will has always been hope to her, which is ridiculous, all things considered. He is the man that saved her, even as he damned her. The one that could see anyone but could never see her. He kept crawling around her mind, and missed everything that was there. 

If he knew her, like Hannibal knew her, he would not be willing to do this all for her sake. He looked at them and saw something that wasn't there, and she knew that he would try to fix them both.

She was pretty sure they'd just end up breaking Will instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Apologies that the Will/Hannibal ended up staying mostly subtext. Though to be honest I kind of just think of them as canon Established.


End file.
